Moderator: coldharvest
Osiris wrote:I'm learning Mandarin right now. Someone mentioned to me it takes about 3000 hours of practice to be fluent..
marie-angelique wrote:Russian isn't that hard if your first language is English. It is in the Indo-European family.
At least Arabic has an alphabet. You are going to have to study for a long time before you will know how to look up words in the dictionary. They order them by the 3 letter root word. You need to decide which Arabic to study. Most learn Modern Standard or Egyptian. Use the search function. Lots of flaggers have studied in Yemen and seemed to find it a good experience.
Mandarin is worlds harder than the rest unless you have a really good ear. It's a tonal language. There are no familiar words. At least the grammar isn't too bad.
I hope you plan to major in something else as well.
JITW wrote:He ended up going backpacking in China after he got out of the Army, people would freak out when this Blond Haired, Blue Eyed White dude would walk into a village and start throwing out Mandarin
Osiris wrote:I'm living in a city of 5 million and people still stop me to take my picture.
JITW wrote:I have a buddy that went to the States and Armys Mandarin Language School (then didn't re-up, lol), it was like 3 years solid of full time language school (with no other distractions), his Mandarin is great but he still sound like a white guy speaking great Mandarin
Osiris wrote:I can get into a name calling match with a five year old and hold my own in Chinese. They don't teach you that kind of stuff in school.
"You're a hippo!"
"You're a hedgehog!"
"You're a dinosaur!"
"You're ugly!"
"You're fat!"
"You're a t-Rex!"
ktrout wrote:JITW wrote:I have a buddy that went to the States and Armys Mandarin Language School (then didn't re-up, lol), it was like 3 years solid of full time language school (with no other distractions), his Mandarin is great but he still sound like a white guy speaking great Mandarin
I think it helps to sleep with one for a long time. I don't think you get the same level of immersion from a school. Especially from a government school.
JITW wrote:I don't want to sleep with him
ktrout wrote:JITW wrote:I don't want to sleep with him
LOL, that's not what I meant. He probably would have learned a lot more by finding a pretty Chinese woman to marry. It was certainly educational for me.
JITW wrote:Every white dude I know who has married a Chinese gal from the motherland has gotten divorced - but if he ever pisses me off I'll make that suggestion to him
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